Here were the very real beginnings of those
countless tales of Gnome and Fairy--ferocious tribe and gentle
tribe--with which our folk-lore abounds.
[Illustration: JEVINGTON.]
As to the existence of a British town here before the coming of the
Romans nothing is known, but that Pevensey Bay witnessed the landing of
Julius Caesar is tolerably certain, and here the custodians of Britain
erected a great stronghold of whose walls we shall see the remnants as
we first enter the castle. In 490 Ella besieged the city and, as quoted
above, put it to fire and sword in effectual fashion; from this period
therefore must be dated the foundations of the South Saxon kingdom.
After upwards of five hundred years another conqueror appeared on the
old Roman wall. On the twenty-eighth September 1066 William I landed,
stumbled and fell, and "clutched England with both hands." Pevensey
(Peofn's Island) was given to Robert of Mortain, and he it was who
built the massive castle of the "Eagle" which we see rising inside the
Roman wall. This name arose from the title "Honour of the Eagle" which
was given to de Aquila, holder of the fortress under Henry I. After
many changes of owners who included Edward I, Edward III and John of
Gaunt, and after being besieged by Stephen against Matilda, by the
Barons against Henry III, and by Richard II against Bolingbroke it fell
on evil times and was actually sold for forty pounds by the
Parliamentary commissioners as building material.
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